Chapter Text
“Iron Man –yes. Tony Stark – no”
This kept running through Tony Stark’s mind and he couldn’t seem to shake it. According to Director Nick Fury, the only good he had was as a faceless soldier and that just did not fly well with him.
As Tony sat in the back of his limo on his way back to his Malibu home after his meeting with Fury, he started getting angry and then he started mulling over options at warp speed:
1. He could take the consultant position, at least he’d be involved and had a chance of changing Fury’s mind
2. He could stay on as a contractor, designing tech and upgrading existing equipment
3. He could say ‘Fuck you’ to SHIELD and drop everything, completely ignoring the organisation’s existence and carrying on as a solo superhero just as he was before Nick Fury tracked him done via Agent Coulson.
He was leaning towards option one when he remembered that Fury had said he’d never be allowed into any of SHIELD's bases as he was not to be trusted (and well, really that was right – he’d have hacked through the computer system as soon as he set foot in the place – not that he had to actually *enter* the place to hack it, it just made it easier) and all the work he did would become the property of SHIELD.
Thinking of that last clause, Tony made a decision.
Pulling out his phone he absently mused that he really need to upgrade the service network out here – only 3 bars out of 5? Not good enough - completely ignoring the fact he was in the middle of a highway with nothing around for mile - and pulled up Pepper’s contact info.
“Hey Pep, hope I’m interrupting something. I am? Good. I need you to cancel all current and in negations contracts with SHIELD. They don’t need me, I don’t need them. I don’t care if I have to pay to break ‘em, get it done A.S.A.P.”
“Tony! What are you thinking?! Those contracts are worth millions of dollars and what do you mean they don’t want you?”
“You know that meeting I had with Fury? Yeah, he flat out told me Iron Man is all they want, not me – which is impossible, they do know that right? – Anyway they don’t want me, they can’t have me. If you can negotiate the same contracts Stark Industries currently has with SHIELD with the military, save for the weapons, do it. I want all connections with SHIELD severed by the end of the week.”
“Tony it’s Wednesday! Do you have any idea what you’re asking? Look, we’ll talk about this more when you get back but I’ll pull up the contracts and see what I can do.”
“Thanks Pep, knew I could count on you” With that, Tony hung up and put is phone on the seat beside him, hand coming up to tap on the arc reactor absently.
“You asked for this Fury. No Tony? You’ll get no Tony.”
Raising his voice, he yelled out to Happy in the driver’s seat. “Hey Happy, it’s too quiet in here, how about some tunes?”
“Right away Mr. Stark” As the sounds of AC/DC reverberated through the limo, Tony finally relaxed and closed his eyes, looking forward to getting home.